Reunion
by Eposcriptor
Summary: Samus, intrigued by the mysterious reappearances of Ridley, undertakes a journey to uncover his secrets; which only leads her deeper into Ridley's own pit of dispair.


Prolouge: An Old Friend  
After the ordeal at the B.S.L. Space Station I decided to take a break from bounty hunting to pursue my personal interests. I had only one priority, finding Ridley. Throughout my experiences, the fights I've had with the Space Pirate General had constantly intrigued me. It always seemed odd that I never dreaded facing him, but rather welcomed it, as an athlete welcomes a good challenge. But whenever I confronted the behemoth Kraid or the Motherbrain, I feared for my life and all the torturous things they could do to me. Yet whenever I was fighting Ridley, I felt confident, I felt liberation, I felt happy.  
Although I thought it was odd that he had come back to face me so many times, as, apparently he continually died in our encounters, (every time when I had but a sliver of energy left in the shielding of my suit). Almost as though he didn't want me to die. Out of all of the beings I ever faced, Ridley was the only one whose goal was not my eradication. I could tell he wasn't trying to fight me, much less kill me, and after facing the Core-X version of him, I can tell he had all the feelings and emotions a human has, I daresay even more.  
Ridley always explained his return through cloning, but through my own deduction, I discovered that it was all a charade. Scars aren't carried over by cloning, as it replicates DNA, and DNA isn't changed by physical abrasions not caused by the DNA itself. In our first encounter, I left Ridley in his lair with a large gash in his left wing. Although he looked dead when I entered the door he was guarding and returned to the platform he lay limp upon moments ago, there was nothing there except for a large pool of blood.  
I thought that he had perhaps disintegrated, as his defeat caused a great explosion. But during my next encounter on Tallon IV, he had some mechanical enhancements, and, although I didn't think much of it in the heat of battle, he had a scar on his left wing on the same exact place where I had previously given him the gash. He wasn't too bad at faking his death either, as he fooled me quite a few times. But I tricked him on our second encounter on Zebes. After I defeated him, I placed a tracking device near the base of his tail, and of course, on my return to his room, he had mysteriously vanished, but the tracker did not fail.  
Using my radar, it was apparent that the tracker was in motion, hopefully it was still on Ridley. He was a very clever dragon after all, I wouldn't be surprised if he found the tracker and placed it on some henchman and ordered him to go to some exotic land and get me lost in the vastness of space. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to pursue him as the Motherbrain awaited defeat. Soon after the Metroid's sacrifice to save me from the Motherbrain and the eradication of Zebes, I was commissioned by the B.S.L scientists to help them navigate and fend off the creatures of planet SR388, the homeworld of the Metroid. Then came the X parasites.  
After a long ordeal of fighting the internal X parasite infection I recovered through the use of a Metroid vaccine, its odd how the things I try to destroy end up saving me in the end. Just as luck would have it, the space station was under attack, seemingly by me. Although it was soon to be known that it was a Core-X Parasite mimicking my Chozo Armor, which was stripped from me during my infection. Of course I was sent in, and after some exploration, I found what appeared to be Ridley in the station's Sub- Zero Storage room. I checked his left wing and, to my surprise, did not find a scar. The scientists must've recovered some of his DNA and cloned him. The clone most likely turned violent and they were forced to freeze him to save their own lives. But with a single touch, he crumbled, and a Core-X floated jubilantly away.  
I did face that Core-X again, and the Ridley I fought in the SRX habitat did strike fear in my heart, there was nothing similar about this Core-X replica and the Ridley I knew. But why? It didn't make any sense! It was an improved version of him, and yet he was so much weaker. I was looking forward to meeting an Old Friend. But instead, I found a beast without a soul. 


End file.
